Schlagwort: games

Some cross-genre games are blended like ingredients in a mixing bowl, while others let their two halves live side-by-side. SpellForce III fits into the latter category, pairing role-playing and real-time-strategy elements. Though the end result is anything but unified, such a contrasting design keeps you from falling into a consistent routine. It also broadens the outlook of the stereotypical fantasy RPG, expanding the limited worldview of a handful of adventurers into the more expansive perspective of a general controlling an army.

Opening missions serve as an extended tutorial, first giving you the basics on how role-playing works, then moving into base-building strategizing where you take the fight to foes on a larger scale. You may start off exploring a map as part of a small party of heroes, slaying the odd gang of goblins or undead or giant spiders and cracking open chests stuffed with weapons, armor, and the usual assortment of magical goodies. You may finish off by taking all that you learned about the landscape while exploring, and build a base, constructing facilities to gather resources, and then whip up an army to hurl at foes who have been doing the same thing.

The baroque plot carrying you through it all assumes some familiarity with the SpellForce franchise, as you are dropped right into the aftermath of the Mage Wars on the Dungeons & Dragons-ish world of Eo. Events here serve as a prequel to the earlier SpellForce games, so it is tough to get up to speed initially. Main plot points feel like typical fantasy fare, though, as they revolve around your semi-chosen one status as the child of a treasonous mage. But there is a lot of depth and background information to absorb. Thankfully, everything eventually rounds into a compelling story. You just need some time to figure out your place amidst all the initially bewildering references if this is your first visit to Eo.

Plot is further developed through dialogue that includes quiet, character-building moments alongside stereotypically epic conversations about gods and magic. But as far as your involvement is concerned, there aren’t a lot of meaningful choices to make. There are also strange shifts in tone, like some of the dialogue was written and recorded before any decision was made on what sort of age rating the game would aim for. So you get lengthy stretches where characters clearly go out of their way to avoid swearing, using awkward words like “heck” and “crap,” and others where characters let loose with incessant f-bombs.

Impressive presentation gives the game real visual impact whether you are playing adventurer or general. Maps are extremely detailed, with lots of little touches and great variety in background scenery. There is a very good balance here between trudging through murky caverns and wandering through forests and plains. The one drawback is that the settings can be too detailed at times, and things like chests and other points of interest are not all that easy to notice. You need to swivel the camera a lot to ensure that you don’t miss anything. And all of this fidelity comes with the price of lengthy loading times, too. Venturing into any new locale drops you to a screen that gives you percentages on loading things like “Initializing Creature Resources,” which pulls you right out of the moment.

Character progression involves few surprises compared to other D&D-inspired games, and each character has access to just a few main skill classes and branching abilities. And since you gain experience fairly quickly, you can ultimately sample a lot of what’s on offer. There are various schools of magic, combat skills like brutality and archery, and all-around categories such as leadership, with branching talents that include the usual range of attacks, buffs, and spells.

Combat is equally forthright. It’s all real-time and rather chaotic, without a tremendous amount of thinking required in a given moment. Consider it a blend between the tactical battles of traditional RPGs and the more frenetic hack-and-slash of action-first RPGs. Combat is never so incessant as to grow tedious, and individual battles seem to fly by. The pacing of these sections is spot-on, with one distinct map after another pulling you into ever-more exciting bouts.

A similar story can be told when it comes to the RTS side of SpellForce III. Whenever a mission gets to the point where more is required than a party of adventurers, the game switches to an RTS mode and unlocks a construction menu where those adventurers lead the way as heroes in the army. From there, you build a town center and begin gathering the wood, stone, and food that form the game’s staples. There are three building tiers, which means you start with expected basics such as the logging cabin, hunting cabin, stone works, and barracks, move on to a second level of iron smelters, forges, and farms, and then into a third that lets you exploit magical Arya water, train elite units, and build stone watchtowers.

Population caps regularly get in the way of fully manning facilities. This forces you to quickly expand territory and earn more population by setting up new outposts (peasants are locked to their regions, too, which also makes it imperative to keep pressing forward), but manpower always seems to lag behind. Needing to wait for carriages to ship resources to new outposts causes further delays, and you can’t wait around to let stockpiles grow because enemy AI is on the attack almost immediately. Resources are also extremely limited, which also keeps you pushing onward so that you can keep the goods flowing to keep cranking out troops.

While both the RPG and RTS elements presented here stay true to form, the overall game is more than the sum of its parts because of how it makes such disparate concepts serve the goal of creating a militaristic role-playing epic. Incorporating base- and army-building into a traditional role-playing formula adds a scope and weight that would not be present if the game never went beyond three or four guys swinging swords and slinging spells. The end result may not be innovative, but it is an interesting and entertaining tweak of RPG conventions offering a lot to anyone looking for something offbeat and engaging.

Website: LINK

With no sign of Nintendo’s Advance Wars strategy series returning any time soon, a game that attempts to fill the void like Tiny Metal is easy to get excited about. Thankfully, developer Area 35 has delivered a game that captures the spirit of the works that inspired it, and one that feels right at home on PC and on the go with Switch.

By and large, this is simply a game where adorably rendered soldiers with little armored vehicles take turns moving across a gridded map to fight their enemies one turn at a time. A unit represents a small squad, and when two units meet, the squads exchange blows while you pray some of your soldiers and vehicles survive the shootout.

Though Tiny Metal props up dire circumstances as the backbone of its campaign, it’s also a game with a shady arms dealer dressed as a circus clown, so you know it doesn’t take itself too seriously at all times. Average soldiers are expressively animated, and every unit type has their own personality, accent, and enthusiasm for destruction. This silliness is at odds with the dialogue-heavy and po-faced cutscenes, yes, but it also grows into the defining attitude of the game as you become more entrenched in combat. That said, don’t feel too bad for turning off the in-battle emotes, which quickly grow repetitive.

You’re given plenty of options to consider during combat, with a range of ground troops and military vehicles that grows steadily from the start, each offering distinct capabilities. Average, run-of-the-mill riflemen can only survive encounters with similar troops, but they’re also the best at capturing city buildings and military facilities in pursuit of resources. A squad of rocket-launcher-equipped Lancers can’t travel very far per turn, or capture as quickly as infantry soldiers, but they’re the only units on foot that can put a dent in armored machines, known as Metals. Metals are probably the most all-around useful unit to place on the board, but they’re not as mobile as some of the recon vehicles that help unveil the fog of war, like Scouts, Radar units, or Fighter jets.

Most of this should be familiar to anyone who’s put more than a few rounds into an Advance Wars game, but Tiny Metal also has some new tricks up its sleeve to keep battles interesting for veterans. Focus Fire is a maneuver that allows multiple units to combo attack a single target. The benefits are twofold: the enemy can only retaliate against one unit per attack, and your combined attack gives you a better chance of wiping the target out before they get the chance to fire back at all. The riskier move, Assault, allows you push enemies off of a specific square, but at the cost of the enemy being able to fire first. Tiny Metal also has a Hero unit system where a super-powerful version of a specific unit type can be summoned to wreak havoc, but only once per match. These tactical considerations keep matches lively and unpredictable, and help distinguish Tiny Metal from being a mere Advance Wars copycat.

Following the tutorial battles at the start, the difficulty gradually increases as tactical options grow more diverse, with new units and commands appearing at a steady rate throughout the six-hour campaign. With multiplayer on hold until next year, one-off skirmishes are the current best way to keep playing after the credits roll, though they take some getting used to. Skirmish mode offers over 50 challenging battles, often in either inordinately small playing fields, groupings of rough terrain, or situations where you are grossly outnumbered and outgunned by the enemy. These fights will definitely keep you busy, but the jump in difficulty from the last mission of the campaign to even just the first few skirmishes is a big one that’s initially off-putting.

The PC version of Tiny Metal is notably better looking and allows you to use a mouse, but fans of Advance Wars will find that playing on the go with Switch completes the nostalgic experience. The only major flaws in portable mode are the tiny fonts used in some menus, and a marked decrease in resolution when the camera zooms in to watch two units attack each other. The PC version gets more graphical options, and an unlocked framerate, but Tiny Metal’s throwback action feels at home on Nintendo’s portable.

Newcomers to the turn-based strategy genre are likely to have a blast with Tiny Metal all the way through its campaign, though the endgame is no doubt a little restrictive. Old hands to this type of strategy game will find a campaign that wears its influences on its sleeve, but still admirably and respectfully fits right in with them. It’s the kind of game where you jump in just to take two or three more turns and suddenly an hour has passed, and you can’t rest until that pesky enemy gunship or tank fleet is down for good. Hopefully that can continue next year if the multiplayer patch comes as promised.

Website: LINK

The Switch has had a fantastic first year, but one of the big Nintendo franchises the console is still missing is the much-beloved Super Smash Bros.. While rumors are swirling about some sort Super Smash Bros. 4 port to Switch, a few enterprising indie developers are looking to fill the void with Smash-inspired fighters of their own. One such effort is Angry Mob Games‘ Brawlout. While it makes a valiant attempt to put its own spin on the Smash style of platform fighting gameplay, Brawlout has some notable issues that aren’t easily overlooked.

It’s worth noting from the outset that the game is designed for competitive Smash fans. If you’re looking for a goofy free-for-all with zany items and copious stage hazards, this isn’t the game you want. What’s here is a very basic selection of fighting arenas with restrained gimmickry, no items, and a handful of game modes that are focused specifically on pure fighting.

If you’re familiar with Smash, the controls in Brawlout will feel like second nature. You have a regular attack button and a special attack button, and pressing these in combination with a directional input will change your attacks. Jumping and running also change your attack properties, and you can charge certain attacks for more power. The goal is to damage your opponent, then hit them hard enough to send them flying off the field. Sounds exactly like Smash so far, right? The big difference is that Brawlout doesn’t offer shielding or grab maneuvers. Instead, the buttons you would normally associate with these moves are re-assigned to a dodge move with an invincibility window that can be executed on the ground or in the air.

While dodging is a mechanic that veteran Smash players will no doubt feel familiar with, the removal of shielding and grabs is quite puzzling. The lack of guard and throw mechanics, which are are nearly universal across all kinds of fighting games, limits your options in frustrating ways. The loss of shielding, for example, makes certain attacks a lot safer than they would be in other games of this sort, and puts a lot of power in the hands of someone going all-in on aggression. It doesn’t necessarily result in a more aggressive game; it just gives someone on the defending side fewer options and leads to more frustration.

Brawlout attempts to cover for the loss of these options with an upgraded Rage mechanic. Rage was something of a hidden mechanic in Smash 4 that would increase a character’s damage output when they had taken a lot of damage. In Brawlout, Rage is very clearly visible through a meter shown underneath a character’s damage readout. As a character takes damage, their meter increases. They can use the meter to power up their special attacks, utilize a combo-escaping burst when the meter’s at least half full, or enter full-on Rage Mode (indicated by a large burning flame graphic on the character’s damage indicator) when it’s at max. Special moves have different properties when used with and without Rage meter to fuel them, so keeping tabs on your meter becomes a big part of the game at higher levels of play.

Brawlout presents its comic combatants and arenas with confidence and style, but even the game’s relatively bland-looking characters prove useful during battle. Joining the cast of original fighters are two guests from other indie games: Juan from Guacamelee and the Drifter from Hyper Light Drifter. They both feel at home in the game, but as of this writing, Drifter is somewhat overpowered compared to the rest of the cast.

However, in order to access the full selection of characters and stages, you have to unlock them. And there is a lot of unlocking to do. Fighting on- and offline, completing the tutorials and arcade modes, leveling up characters, and fulfilling daily objectives will all earn you currency you can spend on „pinatas“ (read: loot boxes) to earn characters, skins, and other goodies. To unlock more than three initial stages, you have to level up specific characters across numerous fights. No, you can’t just find one fighter you really click with and play with them; you need to play each character until you reach a specific level for them to unlock one stage apiece. And that’s a separate grind from the two different in-game currencies.

With the game being so slanted towards competitive play, Brawlout does its best to push you towards playing online. The problem is that, in its current state, online play is a mess. I had a handful of good sessions in my attempts to play online. By and large, my online bouts were defined by stuttering, clunky-feeling movement and laggy slideshows–issues echoed online by other players. It’s hard to recommend a competition-focused game like this when part of its foundation is so flawed.

Brawlout is clearly trying its best to create a unique identity from the game that inspired it. However, the ways in which it’s trying to do this–by removing key mechanics and putting an emphasis on grindy unlocks–don’t work in its favor. Combine this with an online mode that just doesn’t seem to function correctly most of the time and you’ve got a game that’s disappointing in its current form. Keep the Wii U or GameCube hooked up to get your Smash fix for now.

Website: LINK

To refer to L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files simply as a VR port does it a disservice. In many ways, the game feels like a fresh experience with its new first-person perspective coupled with interactive environments. Despite its truncated length, you get the sense that Rockstar put a lot of work into The VR Case Files. It certainly has flaws, but raises the bar for what a good VR port should look like.

You play as the familiar detective Cole Phelps as he tries to solve several, mostly unrelated crimes within 1940s Los Angeles. Perhaps the biggest difference between The VR Case Files is that it only features seven missions, which provide roughly six to eight hours of gameplay. This is down from 21 cases in the original game and means that you lose the nuances from LA Noire’s overarching narrative. If you’ve never before experienced it in its entirety, it will be confusing seeing a new partner for each mission without any added context. Due to the missions‘ very episodic nature, however, it largely still works.

Talking with other characters makes up the bulk of the experience, but you still need to move around the city. The most straightforward method is to hold down the right trackpad and alternatively swing your arms side to side to virtually walk in the direction you’re facing. It can feel a little janky at times as some slight unwanted drifting may occur, but it gets the job done. The second, perhaps more nausea-free way to move, is to gaze at highlighted areas of interest and then press down on the trackpad to teleport.

The VR Case Files has been completely overhauled so that you can pick up a wide variety of highlighted objects in the world. It’s not quite up to the level of Job Simulator in interactivity, but Rockstar does a good job of convincing you that LA Noire was built from the ground up for VR. You can pick up plates, cups, and more and just toss them around as you see fit. Where this added interactivity becomes really impactful is when, for instance, you’re standing over a lifeless corpse examining how the person died. In general, the new first-person perspective bolsters the illusion that you’re a detective by allowing you to pick up and examine clues like you might in real life. It makes you think about evidence in a new light.

Not all these interactions are positive, however. For instance, you may have to hold a match book with one hand and then use your other hand to flip it open to look for additional clues inside. While these occurrences might not be a big deal in the base game where the solution is simply a button press away, the answer isn’t as obvious in VR when you don’t know what objects might have a second layer of interactivity using your free hand. Luckily, these instances are pretty rare.

One the bright side, the new fist fighting mechanics feel like a surprisingly fun boxing minigame. Using room scale, you can get out of the way of punches and throw your own back at opponents. Characters react appropriately when hit, and punches feel very satisfying to land.

In general, the The VR Case Files has a lot of nice little VR touches. When you’re interrogating suspects, for instance, you hold a little detective booklet with all your clues in one hand, and you’ve got a pen in the other, which you use to select your line of questioning. You can even use the pen to write in the notebook. There’s really no meaningful benefit to the added mechanic, but it’s fun drawing silly pictures while you’re interrogating a suspect.

Driving has also been completely revamped. Since the game now takes place in first-person, car cabins are now meticulously detailed. To drive, you use the Vive controller to place your hands on the virtual steering wheel, but before you zip around town, you’ll need to start the engine by turning the key in the ignition. There are a bunch of nice little touches here that really make you feel like you’re sitting in a real car. For instance, you can use your palm to press down on the horn to honk, and you can even manually roll down the windows. The trigger on the right controller allows you to accelerate, and the trigger on the left allows you to break. Driving works as well as you’d hope given this control scheme, and it’s fun trying to weave through traffic as you chase runaway vehicles. You can also drive around the city at your leisure. While there really isn’t anything to do on the road other than to engage in some virtual tourism, it’s nice just driving through a realistically rendered rendition of 1940s LA.

Visually, the graphics and artstyle work wonderfully in VR. While the unique motion captured performances look fantastic in the base game, I had some concern that they might take you out of the experience in VR, considering it’s a new first-person perspective that gives you more movement agency to disrupt the pre-captured performances. Surprisingly, however, Rockstar employs head tracking, so characters will often look your way, even when you’re moving around them.

The VR version isn’t without its flaws, however. While the few shooting sequences are often exciting, and the gun models look and feel accurate based on how you reload them, aiming is often imprecise. Furthermore, even though 99 percent of the game takes place in first-person, there are brief moments when the game switches to a more traditional third-person perspective, which can be a little jarring.

While the game encourages you to physically sit in a chair when the situation calls for it, there’s the occasional bug that makes it look like you’re a super small person with tiny hands when you’re playing seated.

While L.A. Noire: The VR Case Files has its flaws, it excels at making you feel and think like a detective in a way that the base game can’t. The VR version isn’t a replacement for the full game, but it’s a great companion that allows you to play the greatest hit moments from Rockstar’s noire opus in a welcomed new way.

Website: LINK

Atlus unveiled two new trailers for the upcoming Persona spin-off rhythm games during a festive streaming event. Alongside the trailers–which you can watch below–Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night and Persona 5: Dancing Star Night got official release dates in Japan; both will launch simultaneously on May 24, 2018 for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita along with a few special edition bundles. There’s currently no word on release dates for either game in North America.

The „Dancin‘ All-Star Triple Pack“ is exclusive to the PlayStation 4 and includes both games in addition to a downloadable version of Persona 4: Dancing All Night, which released on June 25, 2015 in Japan (September 29, 2015 in North America) and was previously exclusive to the PS Vita. The bundle will also include the soundtrack for both new games in a four-disc set, all packed into a special edition box designed by series art director Shigenori Soejima.

Those who want the PS Vita versions can get the „Dancin‘ Deluxe Twin Pack“ which packs both new games along with their soundtracks on a four-disc set and a ton of DLC costumes. The costumes are for both games and call back to other Atlus franchises such as mainline Shin Megami Tensei, Devil Summoner, Devil Survivor, and Digital Devil Saga.

You can watch the trailers for both games and see their tracklists below. For more on the Persona series, check out our discussion and story on why we ranked Persona 5 as GameSpot’s second best game of 2017 or our video essay on how the game pushes the RPG genre forward.

Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night

Fans of Persona 3 will recognize the characters and locations featured in the new extended trailer. The main character is busting moves on the roof of Gekkoukan High School, Yukari is getting her groove on at the Port Island Station, and Mitsuru and Akihiko are both getting footloose atop Tartarus. Gameplay appears to be similar to Persona 4: Dancing All Night with the six-step rhythm system and character dialogue outside of the playing through songs. Characters appear to be rendered in their respective 3D models during dialogue in place of drawn portraits, something previously seen in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. Also, the club-inspired velvet room from the Persona 4 dancing game makes a return.

In the trailer, you can hear remixes of the songs „Time,“ „When The Moon Reaches For The Stars,“ and „Mass Destruction,“ but there will be many songs to play through. Below is the full tracklist:

• Brand New Days (Yuyoyuppe Remix)
• Mass Destruction
• When The Moon’s Reaching Out Stars (Hideki Naganuma Remix)
• Want to be Close (ATOLS Remix)
• Shinsou Shinri (Lotus Juice Remix)
• Deep Break Deep Breath (Yuu Miyake Remix)
• Soul Phrase
• Light the Fire Up in the Night ‚Kagejikan‘ + ‚Mayonaka‘
• Burn My Dread (Novoiski Remix)
• When the Moon’s Reaching Out Stars
• Time (Atlus Kitajoh Remix)
• Wiping All Out (Atlus Kozuka Remix)
• A Way of Life (Atlus Kitajoh Remix)
• Heartful Cry (Atlus Konishi Remix)
• Light the Fire Up in the Night ‚Kagejikan‘ + ‚Mayonaka‘ (Sasakure.UK Remix)
• Mass Destruction (Tetsuya Kobayashi Remix)
• Subete no Hito no Tamashii no Tatakai (T.Komine Remix)
• Burn my Dread
• Subete no Hito no Tamashii no Tatakai (Daisuke Asakura Remix)
• Kimi no Kioku (Atlus Meguro Remix)
• Our Moment
• Moonlight Serendipity
• Mass Destruction (Persona Music Fes 2013)
• Burn my Dead -Last Battle-
• Brand New Days

Persona 5: Dancing Star Night

Coming off the heels of the eccentric jazz-fusion soundtrack of Persona 5, Dancing Star Night brings the cast and music together for another sonically-pleasing trip to Tokyo. In the trailer we see the cast getting their groove on at Shibuya Station, Shujin Academy, and in several palaces. Even Morgana is seen getting in on the fun at Kamoshida’s palace and Futaba’s showing off her moves at the pyramid of her own palace. Dialogue appears to also use 3D character models in place of drawn portraits, as seen when Caroline and Justine invade the Leblanc attic. Like Persona 4: Dancing All Night, the six-step rhythm system is used to play through the game’s songs.

Remixes of „Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There,“ „Life Will Change,“ and „Last Surprise“ can be heard in the trailer. But there’ll be plenty more for fans since series composers Shoji Meguro, Atsushi Kitajoh, and Ryota Kozuka are all working together alongside other artists for remixed versions. Below is the entire tracklist:

• Rivers in the Desert
• Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There (Jazztronik Remix)
• Keeper of Lust
• Blooming Villain (Atlus Konishi Remix)
• Hoshi to Bokura to (Tofubeats Remix)
• Tokyo Daylight (Atlus Kozuka Remix)
• Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There
• Rivers in the Desert (Mito Remix)
• Blooming of Villain
• Life Goes On
• Price
• Whims of Fate (Yukuhiro Fukutomi Remix)
• Beneath the Mask (KAIEN Remix)
• Will Power (Shacho Remix)
• Last Surprise (Taku Takahashi Remix)
• Haha no Ita Hibi (Atlus Kitajoh Remix)
• Life Will Change (Atlus Meguro Remix)
• Jaldabaoth ~Our Beginning
• Last Surprise
• Life Will Change
• Groovy
• One Nightbreak
• Rivers in the Desert (Persona Super Live P-Sound Bomb 2017)
• Hoshi to Bokura to
• Last Surprise (Jazztronik Remix)

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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3

Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night

Persona 5

Persona 5: Dancing Star Night

PlayStation 4

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What started out as a quiet, quirky stream of an empty chair and a yule log on the official Overwatch channel has morphed into an equally quiet and even quirkier internet phenomenon. Over 30,000 people are watching Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan sit silently in the chair and stare and the camera. (As I’ve been writing this story, the number keeps going up, and at the time of publish, it’s sitting at 39,434.)

Moments captured on Twitter, and Jeff’s changing blinking patterns and shifting in the chair, prove that it’s not a loop (or if it is, it’s a very long one). If you want to experience the Christmas Eve magic yourself, you can tune into the stream at the bottom of this article.

Twitter user DeathETM captured the epic boom mic drop here.

And at one point, Jeff even opened a present, as captured by Choylinggg

What other wonders await? We’ll have to keep watching to find out.

Overwatch is currently in the midst of its yearly Winter Wonderland holiday event, which includes an assortment of new, Legendary skins and cosmetics (which you can check out here) as well as the limited-time Yeti Hunt mode. Winter Wonderlands is available from now until January 1 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Justin Haywald on Google+

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Overwatch

PlayStation 4

Xbox One

PC

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